Florida Gators (13-13, 6-7 SEC) basketball may not be winning much in 2014-15 but that has not stopped Nike from including the program in its latest special uniform release that “fuse progressive, premium materials with school heritage.”

Florida will be one of six men’s programs to don new Hyper Elite Disruption uniforms, joining Kentucky, Duke, Syracuse, Arizona and Oregon; the UConn and Baylor women will also wear the uniforms.

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The Florida Gators avoided losing five-straight games for the first time since 1997-98 by pulling out a hard-fought 50-47 victory against the Vanderbilt Commodores on Wednesday evening at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida.

Florida (13-13, 6-7 SEC) played the game short-handed yet still managed to get revenge on Vanderbilt (14-12, 4-9 SEC), which upset the Gators on the road two weeks ago.

OnlyGators.com breaks down Wednesday’s action with 10 quick-hitters:

It was over when: Vanderbilt forward James Siakam pieced together a personal 5-0 run – including a spin move dunk and old-school three-point play – to put the visitors on top 45-44 with 1:24 to play. The teams traded buckets, and Florida sophomore point guard Kasey Hill had an opportunity at the line to give his team back the lead but missed both free throws. Following a missed VU attempt from the charity stripe, UF got consecutive offensive possessions after a missed three from freshman forward Devin Robinson was deflected out of bounds. That is when Hill drove into the lane only to find Robinson for a go-ahead dunk. Two free throws from freshman PG Chris Chiozza iced the victory for the home team.

“I was proud. I could see Kasey fighting it. I could just see his body language was not good after the two free throws. I watched him, and I think he tried to gather and regroup himself. And I’m glad he did that; he kept himself in the game,” head coach Billy Donovan said. “I thought our guys competed and battled. It’s just that, you know, offensively it is an absolute struggle – a struggle.”

Significant stretch: Struggling to score and trailing by six, the Gators suddenly retook the lead against the Commodores thanks to an 13-0 run that included a five-point trip. Redshirt junior guard Eli Carter made a basket, missed the and-one opportunity, grabbed the rebound and registered an assist as junior F Alex Murphy drained a three. UF led by a game-high seven points with six minutes to play as VU went scoreless for 6:14 and without a field goal for 8:31.

The Florida Gators announced just over one hour before tip-off on Wednesday that redshirt junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith, the team’s second-leading scorer, has been suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules.

Finney-Smith sat out Wednesday night’s contest against the Vanderbilt Commodores and will at least miss one more game on Saturday.

“He’s suspended. I’m not playing him against LSU. I’m going to revisit it again on Monday,” head coach Billy Donovan said after Wednesday’s game.

Finney-Smith, the 2014 SEC Sixth Man of the Year, is not only Florida’s best active scorer but also its leading rebounder, accounting for 12.9 points and 5.8 boards per game. He also shoots a team-high 47.5 percent from the field among starters.

1 » Tuesday’s baseball game between the No. 5 Florida Gators and Florida A&M has been postponed due to weather with no make-up date yet scheduled. Florida (3-0), which moved up 19 spots from No. 24 in the latest USA Today Coaches’ Poll, will next take the field for its first road game of the season when it faces USF on Wednesday in Tampa. UF will then return home to host No. 14 Miami in a three-game series over the weekend. OnlyGators.com will provide a Gators baseball update after Wednesday’s game and following the conclusion of the series with the Hurricanes on Sunday.

2 » Former Florida striker Abby Wambach was announced Sunday as the honorary starter for this year’s Daytona 500 on Feb. 22. Wambach, whose international goal scoring world record is up to 177, will lead the United States Women’s National Team as it prepares to compete in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup beginning June 6.

1 » Former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow was a guest on Golf Channel‘s Morning Drive on Monday. After a sit-down interview with the hosts (Watch), Tebow took to the golf simulator, telling one golf pro’s host that his son should go to Florida over Florida State before lining up and ripping a 343-yard drive.

After a two-week break, The Silver Lining is back to its weekly publishing schedule. This edition is dedicated to taking a closer look at the Florida Gators men’s basketball team, which at 12-13 overall and 5-7 in SEC play is floundering with its leading scorer – junior guard Michael Frazier II (high-ankle sprain) – out for an undetermined amount of time.

It’s simple, really…

To anyone who has watched the Gators this season – whether a fan, journalist, analyst, player or coach – it is quite apparent that Florida is, shall we say, a flawed basketball team. Some may chalk many of the Gators’ ills up to bad luck; UF, after all, is KenPom.com’s least-lucky team in the nation by a wide margin at -.162. But its head coach, Billy Donovan, knows that’s ultimately an easy excuse and one that tries to hide a much bigger problem.

Yes, Florida has certainly had its fair share of bad luck – late-game officiating, last-second baskets made by opponents, Jacob Kurtz’s accidental own goal tip-in at the buzzer against Florida State – but its 2-6 record in games decided by two points or fewer (and 12-13 record overall) are true representations of its play to this point.

As Donovan said after Saturday’s loss, “Life, to me, is always about getting to the truth.” So let’s do just that.

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